Thursday, December 29, 2016

As Olivia and I gear
up for October-December note compilations, our hyenas aren’t making it any
easier for us.We’re in the midst of the
annual post-migration cub boom – where lots of mothers, both old and new, bring
tiny, squittering black cubs into the world.With the den scenes escalating in excitement, Olivia and I will be
scrambling to pin all the new faces to their respective mothers before we send
our notes back to the lab.Here we
provide a tri-clan demographic update of adorableness for all your favorite
Serena cubbers and fluffers.

North Clan:

This immortal cross-eyed snap of Beluga
shall live on infamously in the annals of the MSU Hyena Project until the end
of time.Although her face is now
catching up to the rest of her body, Beluga initially grew so fast she obtained
the body of an 8-month-old cub with the head of 4-month-old cub (See top-left
insert, ã Olivia
Spagnuolo).This, along with her
unprecedented fluffiness, made for one disproportionate-looking furball.

The Down-Low: Despite
being the largest clan that we study in the Mara Triangle, North Clan actually
had one of the quietest den scenes for quite some time.There were only two moms (POL and TERO) and three
cubs: DIVA, DEJA, and BELA (particularly endearing due to her unique body-to-face
ratio).This is partially due to MOMO,
APPA, CRDY, PDTN, ABAT, and BSTI successfully graduating so early in their
lives, but it was still strange.Now
there has been an explosion of prospective mothers hanging around Judith Den
and we believe WAFL, TEDY (first time mom!), and FUZZ have black cubs we
haven’t seen yet. RMON and GUMY (first time mom!) seem to have two cubs apiece,
although we haven’t seen them nurse yet to confirm them.INK gave birth to KKAT and GARF in early
October and they are just starting to get their full coats of spots.Pending litter sizes, this could be an
exciting cohort of 12 new cubs this year.

Happy Zebra Clan:

Happy Zebra
cubs from left to right: QUAK (entering a deep telecommunic state with the
ground), GOLI, ORB (just look at that exquisite beauty), and SKEP (ã Olivia Spagnuolo). As evidenced by GOLI and SKEP
(top-right insert), Happy Zebra cubs are capable of obtaining infinite
cuteness.And never shall we forget OMLY
(bottom insert)!

The Down-Low: All
born around the same time and still in the black cub stage: KRKN, CHPA, BULU,
and JUJU are impossible to differentiate at this point aside from when they are
nursing from their mothers at the den.Soon to the join them will be cubs from suspected mothers MUON and
EREM.While we haven’t seen cubs nursing
from them yet, they have been sitting, digging, and groaning into and sitting
in a lot of dens holes (in MUON the Subterranean Hyena’s case actually entering
dens and sacking out for hours as well!) – giveaway signs of mothers
interacting with cubs too small leave the den.The Three Musketeers of Happy Zebra Clan are ORB (the most beautiful
hyena cub in all the land with her sumptuous chestnut brown coat), GOLI, and
QUAK.These three go everywhere and
explore everything together.ORB, GOLI,
and QUAK are also fond of playing “kill the carrier” with animal scraps of the
most paramount importance, such as wildebeest horns, zebra tails, and gazelle
femurs.As unfortunate as it may seem,
QUAK is a little slow.He’ll often
approach dangerously close to zebra stallions and wind up running for his life
to avoid being trampled.Another time,
QUAK followed a female hyena, squittering profusely (a vocalization signaling a
desire to nurse), for about 100m away from the den – only to realize that this
hyena was in fact not his mother (RING) and stare longingly at the escarpment
for several minutes.Fortunately,
through a complex algorithm and rigorous cognitive testing, we have confirmed
that QUAK does indeed have a brain – even if it is a bit slow on the draw.OMLY, the most recent graduate of Happy
Zebra, was the previous fan favorite due to her quirky tenacity, steadfast
resolve, and general silliness.She still
manages to thwart and foil all of our attempts to collect saliva stick, novel
object, and inhibition trial data.Often
lope arriving out of the blue and doing her best Jaws imitation, OMLY loves to
steal meat from cognition tubes, flee with water jugs, and sever Kimbo-swathed
ropes shrouded in perfectly usable cub saliva.Oh OMLY, always #1 in our hearts…

South Clan:

This is a
formation known as a “cuddle”, short for a puddle of cubs – often times only
seen in South Clan due to the sheer number of cubs needed to obtain a
cuddle.Just imagine, this is only half
of the cub power of South den sessions. Any mere mortals, would instantly be
immobilized by the raw cuteness. Lots of
other fun things happen in South too…like JEMI using mom as a climbable object (See top-right
insert, ã Olivia
Spagnuolo).

The Down-Low: South
is quite simply the Den that Never Sleeps – there are 13 den dependent cubs
zooming around at 1,000 mph and being super hard to keep track of.Out of our three clans, these guys are the
happiest to see us when we roll up to the den – always romping over to the Land
Cruiser when we approach.They are
currently denning at Moat Den, which in combination with the sheer number of
cubs in South, is quite possibly the best situation for a hyena cub to grow up
in (terrible for catching behaviors though!) - lots of cubs to play romp
through ponds and tall grass with.The
pranksters are DAMA and MORI – two crazy boys who love noming and dismantling
our poor, old research vehicles.TOBA,
KAPU, and JEMI are the youngest cubs, with TOBA and KAPU clearly understanding
that they are the daughters of the matriarch JAVA.Exuding a quiet confidence, they don’t allow
anybody to aggress on them.Now that our
cohort of fluffers are getting their long, shaggy coats, there is certainly an
added a level of difficulty to identifying them around the den – especially
AXIO, PHRH, LEFI, AMRL, and ANUB.PIXI,
MOH, MIRA, ROUG, and LRAX have all graduated in the last couple of months and
have been congregating together at their big kid hangout spots on the Candy Bar
Plains.However, recently they’ve all
taken turns visiting their little cousins back at the communal den.Finally, even when we thought South Clan
could not accommodate any more cubs than they currently had – WHIZ pops up at
the communal den with a new little black cub in tow.With their little cub army of reinforcements,
South may be making the push in the next couple of years to be the largest clan
we study in the Mara Triangle.

Friday, December 23, 2016

As hyena researchers, we devote our time and full attention to
the clans we study. Our families are far away; our new family is here in fisi camp and
includes the hyenas. It is a given that we spend A LOT of time with our hyenas.
We watch them for 6-8 hours a day, every day. Back in camp, we spend the rest
of our afternoon writing and thinking about them. So, when one of our hyenas is
suffering, it makes the watching hard.

When I arrived 2 months ago, a subadult named Jame was
injured. He had a snare around his neck. Snares are sometimes used by people
hoping to catch bush meat, or by home owners protecting the bomas, the corrals where livestock are sheltered. When Jame was first seen 6 months ago, he
already had one of these snares around his neck. We estimated that he was
around a year old at that first sighting. This means for a third or more of
Jame’s life, he has experienced regular pain and difficulties in some normal daily activities, for example while grooming or bending to drink water. As he grew, the
snare became tighter and tighter. It cut deeply into his neck, and everyone was
surprised each time we saw him alive. We waited as Jame’s condition
deteriorated, hoping that this was a rare instance where we could intervene. Jame
would need to be darted to remove the snare and save his life.

Jame first seen with the snare around his neck.

I had never seen a darting, and understood it to be a
potentially stressful event for us and the hyenas. The conditions have to be
just right. The individual needs to be separated from the rest of the clan. And it is also
important that the individual be close to the car, to ensure accuracy from the
shooter. Fortunately, we have Benson. Benson Pion holds one of the best (if not
THE best) darting records in mammalogy labs today. He has darted nearly 100
hyenas, and none of his dartings have resulted in injury to the animal. I had
every confidence that Benson could be successful.

We were instructed to wait for Kay, and when she finally arrived we all immediately set out to find and dart Jame. One of Kay's first days out, they found Jame. Everyone was on edge waiting for a call saying his snare had been removed. Unfortunately that day the conditions were not right. Jame was skittish of the car (and everything else too) and they could not get close enough to take the shot. We were all feeling pretty down, wondering if we would get another chance, or if we would have to watch as Jame slowly died. But the very next day we found him again. That day both of our research cars were on the site. Benson and Kay in the smaller (and hopefully less scary) car. Meanwhile, Lily, Rebecca, and I waited anxiously in the bigger cruiser. We saw the gun slide out the window, and a dart fly from its end into Jame. He reeled and bit at the spot, before starting to slow down. He became visibly more drunk, until he finally lay down, he was out.

Kay and Benson working to removethe snare.

YES! We were so relieved! Jame was down and we rushed up and carefully but quickly cut the snare loose. The wire had cut very deeply into his neck, and kept the wound fresh. When we removed it we were shocked by how small the noose was, and again we were all surprised by Jame's resilience. Once the wire was removed we coated his neck with antibacterial powder, took a few samples that were quick and noninvasive, and loaded him into the back of the car. Then he was taken to a safe spot, hidden in the bushes to wake up. Lily and I, a little shaken up, continued our obs session. All any of us could do now was to wait and see if he healed without infection.

Over the course of 10 days or so, we saw Jame twice. Once the night after the snare was removed, when we went to check on his hiding place. Then once again today! We are really happy to report that Jame is looking healthy and he appears to be healing well!

Jame seen on the 22nd of December with a healing wound!

It was a fairly emotional first darting, but we are all really pleased with the results. And of course, Benson continues to grow his list of successful dartings!

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Update: Hall of Shame is still coming up soon.. but first... some goofy hyena videos.

Testing the cognition of hyenas in the wild can be really difficult, but it's also really fun. MVUA, a young subadult hyena in Talek West, just opened the multi-access box last night (Dec 5th). Unfortunately for me, she was one of 16 hyenas to come up and interact with the box. It's taken me hours to code the video and keep all the hyenas straight! I ended up taking screen shots with ID labels in order to remember who sacked out where.

For those who are new: the multi-access box is a puzzle box baited with meat. There are four different "doors" for getting inside the box that all require different motor behaviors to open. I'm using it to test hyena innovation and learning. MVUA ultimately opened the box using the "door knob" side. It's a door with a hinge on the bottom and a door knob near the top that opens down and out like an oven door. It's proving to be the hyena's favorite way to open the box.

Minute 5:43: A few more hyenas have sacked out... trying to remember who sacked out where. We're at 11 hyenas now.

Minute 6:55: Now there's a cub pile to the left of the box and I can hardly tell where one cub ends and the other begins!

Minute: 10:25: Finally, here's the moment where MVUA opens the box. Identifying what everyone was doing at that second was a challenge.

However, moments like the ones below make up for all the hard work! Hyenas rank at the top in terms of goofy, silly, and creative behavior... especially when they're playing with my cognition apparatuses (aka "toys" to hyenas).

RAST was pretty nervous about the tube, so she used the ditch to hide and sneak a look at it.

South cubs explore the multi-access box and scare themselves!

DAMA actually went entirely inside the box.

GNUG tries to see if he can fit through the box.

SOUP was really excited to come check out the tube, only the real puzzle here was how to get to it!

And then there was that time a stork walked over and got the meat before Wallflower did.

Friday, December 2, 2016

Hello all! Rate The Mara is a possible series I may post every now and then, when the blog is need of an infusion of subpar humor. It's intended to be a gleeful series presenting some facts about the animal, having some fun, and giving a completely arbitrary, subjective, and overall meaningless rating to species we encounter in the Maasai Mara. We'll see where it goes. Enjoy!

A magnificent bull Eland sporting a trendy dewlap* around its jowly neck.

Height: 1.6m (♂♂) and 1.4m (♀♀) at the shoulder

Weight: 500-600kg
(♂♂) and
340-445 kg (♀♀), largest
being 942kg

First Described By: Peter Simon Pallas in 1766

Number of Horns: 2Number
of Legs: 4

Does it have a tail?: Yes! Very handy for swatting those
pesky biting insects.

Circadian Rhythm: Diurnal

Mara High School Superlative: Largest antelope in Kenya…definitely
largest antelope in its graduating class, only the Giant Eland is greater in size
but he plays for our cross-continent rivals and is not considered in this
analysis.

Best Friend in the Mara: Sadly, none really – Eland are kind
of stuck up and they don’t like associating with others outside of their
herd.They are still really beautiful
though!

Predator Response:Not many carnivores are insane enough to attack Eland.They congregate in large herds of up to 500
individuals, are very wary and shy of outsiders, can move surprisingly quickly
for animals of their size…oh yeah and their size, would you want to take on an
animal capable of acquiring the mass of a metric ton? But if a carnivore was
insane enough, the Eland would utilize postural movements, its advanced vocal
repertoire of loud barks, and the flehmen response to warn others of
danger.The herd would then gracefully
vacate the area.Normally predators are
so very mesmerized by the graceful, synchronized gliding of the Eland that they
simply stop and stare to relish such a beautiful sight.

Preferred Habitat: Common Eland prefer habitats with a wide
variety of flowering plants like savannah, woodlands, and even montane
grasslands…but they despise dense forest because even though they won’t admit
it, they are very afraid of the dark (some even sleep with night lights!).

Special Powers: The Eland is capable of jumping 2.4 meters
straight into the air from a standstill, which not only means that it can box
jump Yao Ming – but also complete a 100m hurdle involving Dikembe Mutombo,
Shaquille O’Neal, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Frankenstein, James P.
Sullivan from Monsters Inc., and the Flying Spaghetti Monster faster than
Kendra Harrison.Also as a footnote,
males are capable of growing a dewlap*, very special indeed.This unique feature is a continuous piece of
loose skin which hangs about their necks with a tuft of thick black hair
growing on the end that increases their sexiness to female Eland.

Weaknesses: The Eland cannot sprint, anatomically cannot –
perhaps due the fact that it can outweigh a Volkswagen Beetle.However, as meager compensation evolution saw
fit to grant them the power to out-trot every other antelope in the animal
kingdom.Seriously they are really good
a trotting.

If it was rendered into one of the Original 151 Pokémon:

650 HP, 450 Defense, 300 Attack, 330 Special, 240 Speed.

Is it Noble?: Absolutely, look up nobility in your
dictionary and you will find a picture of an Eland.Eland is also a synonym for nobility if you
have one of those fantastic pocket thesaurus gizmos on your person.

What would happen if it fought a Lion?: First of all, female
Eland would not fight a lion, they would abstain peacefully.However, male Eland with lower moral
standards could be tricked into fighting a lion.The Eland could not out-sprint the lion, since
it literally can’t, but it could trot away from it for a significant period of
time.Whenever the lion got close the
Eland would simply box jump over it and continue trotting in the opposite direction.Eventually, the lion would become so
exhausted from dehydration that it would faint – ceding the KO to the Eland by
default.

Help Support the Research

You can help support our research by making a donation to the Hyena Research Fund at MSU. Your contributions provide necessary resources for the students and scientists to continue our work. Use the link below to make a donation or contact MSU for additional details.